 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, accompanied by his Eminence James Cardinal Hickey. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, it is my special honor and joy to present the President of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you, Walden. Thank you, Cardinal Hickey. Now some of you may wonder why I've come here today. Well, I like great teams, and I couldn't think of two greater teams than the Lions and the Saints. I understand that you just had student body elections. You know, I have to tell you, I was President of the student body in my high school, and I always had a dream that one day the President of the United States might come visit our school. Of course, every time we invited him, President Washington said he was busy. By the way, a certain friend of mine has a message she wanted me to send to you. Please, for your families, for your friends, for your country, and for yourselves, just say no to drugs and alcohol. Cardinal Hickey, Bishop Carada, Father O'Malley, Sister Marcella Scully, Secretary Cavasos and Dan Curtin. Just before I came out here, my good friend Cardinal Hickey took me to view the altar before which Archbishop Carroll celebrated Mass. I was deeply honored that Cardinal Hickey gave me the opportunity to see where that great American man of God worshiped. America's first bishop was a scholar, a patriot, a good shepherd in our nation's founding years. St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote about qualities that marked the character of Archbishop Carroll. Three things, he said, are necessary for the salvation of man to know what he ought to believe, to know what he ought to desire and to know what he ought to do. I've come here today as a temporal leader, a man concerned with the affairs of state in the course of the country. And yet I've come to tell you, my young friends, that in all my years of public life, I have found that what Aquinas tells us is necessary for the salvation of man is also necessary for the strength and happiness of nations. Now we're in the middle of an election campaign, and everything I say is likely to be taken as political. But then even if I don't talk about where I stand, it's sort of like the story of a CIA agent who was sent to contact another agent in Ireland. He didn't know the other agent, but he was told that his name was Murphy and that to establish their contact, he was to say, it's a beautiful day today, but it'll be a greater day tomorrow. So he made his way to this tiny town by the sea and walked into the local pub, said to the bartender, I'm looking for a man named Murphy. And the bartender said, well, if it's Murphy, the bootmaker you want, he's across the street on the second floor. If it's Murphy the farmer, he's just a mile down the road and on the left-hand side. And then my name is Murphy. The agent said, well, it's a beautiful day today and it'll be a better day tomorrow. I said to the bartender, it's Murphy the spy you want. So you know where I stand even if I don't say so. But I hope you won't mind if for the most part I set aside the election. What I have to say to you today has to do not with the day-to-day politics, but with the enduring truths that mold men and women and move nations. Truths like faith, hope, and love, and as Paul tells us, the greatest of these is love. I found there are two kinds of people in this world, those absorbed in themselves and those who give love. Love to their families, to their friends, to their communities, to their country, and to God. Yes, we show love in many ways. By saying we love, of course, and by putting our arms around someone, but even more by how we live, by our courtesy, by our integrity, by studying and preparing for the future, and by service to humanity. Add it all up and you'd say by our values. Some in our age are inclined to say, well, that's okay, but not very important, so what else is new? But this is important and in many ways it's all so new. The American political philosopher James Q. Wilson has written that the most important change that he has seen since the mid-60s in scholarly thinking about how to make our country better is the new understanding, as he put it, public interest depends on private virtue. And to take just one area, education. Catholic schools across America are showing that private virtue and public interest do indeed live together. Yes, you have two of the best schools in this city and you're some of the best students in this city. And what's true of you, how you stand out is also true of the students of Catholic schools in most cities. Isn't that because you're not only learning the ABCs, but also about right and wrong, good and evil, and the nature of God's love. Your prayers, your dress code, your religious studies, your service to your community all go hand in hand with your academic achievement. The public interest in your education depends on the private virtues you're learning. Or as Aquinas might have said, it depends on your acquiring the elements of personal salvation. I don't want you to think I'm just talking here. I've heard a lot about your accomplishments and I couldn't help remembering something General George C. Marshall said when he was asked why he was so certain that we would win the Second World War. And General Marshall said we have a secret weapon, the best blankety-blank kids in the world. And when I was told about all you do, I thought America still has a secret weapon and it's still the best blankety-blank kids in the world. It amazes me that while you're exploring the mysteries of God's love and all that goes with it and showing how this exploration goes hand in hand with getting a good education, it's around our nation deny the public importance of the private virtues that you are mastering. If you can believe it, not long ago, one state chapter of a national activist organization said that for public schools to teach the idea that fidelity in marriage is a traditional American value would be unconstitutional since as they said, these values are rooted in religion. Well, God's love shows most strongly, of course, in the greatest gift of all, the gift of life. And here, as you know, there is great resistance to any talk about values. Recently, those who call themselves pro-choice have taken to discussing children who might be born deformed. Perhaps it would be better they say to spare the infant the struggle of life. I can't help thinking of Christy Nolan, who earlier this year received one of the world's most coveted literary awards. Why, Christy Nolan? Well, you see, there were complications at his birth that he almost died. And there were some who suggested that he should be allowed to, but doctors saved him. Only in the process, he was left totally paralyzed. He cannot walk, talk, or control his limbs. He writes, using what he calls a unicorn stick attached to his forehead, pecking out his words on a typewriter a page a day. In his message accepting the award, Christy Nolan wrote in that manner, Imagine what I would have missed if the doctors had not revived me on that September day long ago. Well, imagine what so many denied the right to life have missed. Imagine what we have all missed for their absence. Think of the cost to all of us because of the denial in public life of this most basic of values. I can't help wondering of those who call themselves pro-choice have ever stopped to think that the fetus, the unborn child, never has a choice. In no area is the importance of private virtue to the public interest clearer than in another area the area of drug abuse. When we came into office eight years ago we found a drug epidemic that few in the government seemed to care much about. We started arresting and sending to jail drug dealers and drug kingpins in larger and larger numbers. In the last eight years federal narcotics convictions have more than doubled and we have seen tons of cocaine and tens of thousands of tons of marijuana and there's other good news too. After much prodding, pushing and bludgeoning from us our reluctant Congress is expected to pass a tough new drug bill in the next few days. It would give our law enforcement officers new and better tools for helping them protect us all and to help protect the lives of the innocent. It would provide for the death penalty for those who commit murder in the course of a drug related crime. In the last eight years federal drug dealers and drug dealers and federal friends are dropping their nostalgia for the do your own thing in your own time baby, 60's and are joining us wholeheartedly in this fight against drugs. But important as all this government activity has been for my money the turning point in the fight against illegal drugs came when a certain little lady opened her heart and spoke the courage of the values that God placed in your soul. I've told this story before Nancy was in Oakland, California some time back speaking in a school room and a little girl stood up and said but what do we do when someone offers us drugs and Nancy said just say no. Today there are over 12,000 just say no clubs in schools across the country. The, you know something while the number of drug users soared during the four years before we took office it's dropping now and earlier this year we got the best news of all. High school students are saying no to drugs including cocaine as never before. What Nancy has been saying to so many young people is what the priests the nuns and the teachers say to you each day that you must have values to guide your lives. Too often values aren't taught or can't be taught in our public schools but they are taught here and may I say because you're here each of you is greatly privileged. But with each gift goes an obligation and yours is to act as examples to your friends who aren't as fortunate to go to these schools and who may be tempted by those who would lead them astray. I know that your parents all make great sacrifices so that you can come here it's a measure of their love for you. For years I've been urging congress to recognize the public interest in your education and to allow your parents to support your education either through tuition tax credits or vouchers. We need a congress that shares and supports the values of the American people. We hear the cry but what values do you mean? Well that's easy just for starters love thy neighbor as thyself in this past Lenten season the holy father invited Cardinal Hickey to give the yearly retreat for him and his household an honor never before accorded to an American priest or bishop. In his meditations the Cardinal said to obey God the author of our freedom is to respect our freedom and he added in the logic of the gospel harmony with God's will is the true definition of history. So this is my message to you as a secular leader but also as a man standing in humility before God to seek what the Cardinal calls true freedom to reach for what Aquinas called the necessities of salvation for if you do if these lessons become part of the instruction you carry with you to end your studies here America will be stronger the world will be better and there will be no limits to what in this sweet land of liberty you can do with your lives. Let me just if I can say a few words on my own about this this nation of ours you know I received a letter we're quite unique I received a letter from a man one day he pointed out something I'd never thought of he said you can go to live in France you cannot become a Frenchman you can go to live in Germany or Spain and you can become a German or a Spaniard and he went on naming Japan and China and other countries but he said anyone from any corner of the world can come to America and become an American and this this country is the only one you can say has that peculiar melding of people together revealing as no other area ever has that we are all the sons and daughters of God you know I don't say this very often and sometimes people may call it mysticism but I have always believed that there was some divine power and plan that placed this great continent between the two great oceans to be found only by people who had that extra love of freedom and that courage within their hearts to uproot themselves from their native land leave and sometimes family and friends but to come here and to create this nation that we have created for ourselves here I have to believe that that is true just as I believe that Lincoln spoke the truth I've learned in these eight years as never before when he said I could not perform the functions of this office if I did not know that I could call upon one who is stronger and wiser than all others thank you all God bless you all my name is Sonia Sweetney and I'm the student council president for All Saints High School on behalf of all the students here I would like to thank you for that inspirational speech and it is my pleasure to present to you from all the students and faculty of All Saints High School a yearbook and two t-shirts for both you and Mrs. Reagan God bless you and thank you for the motivating message good morning Mr. President my name is Jermaine Teller it is an honor for me to present to you this jacket with the number I think you will remember from your playing days on behalf of the 1987 Metro Conference Football Champions the lead in divisional play the Archbishop Curle Alliance